California State Parks and the University of California, Berkeley (UCB) have developed a project* to identify evolutionary hot spots in California. Our work stems from long-standing concerns about protecting evolutionary processes as well as products and was stimulated by the report “Conservation Significance of Tejon Ranch, August 2003” by the Conservation Biology Institute. The report identifies the Tehachapi Mountains as a “Crucible of Evolution,” and identifies 17 taxa whose evolutionary trends signal an evolutionary hot spot (pp 14, 15).

Following-up on the concept of evolutionary hot spots, State Parks sponsored a two-day workshop in November 2005 at UCB, attended by 15 evolutionary biologists from UCB, UC Davis, UCLA, SDSU, USGS, and other institutions, which resulted in our preliminary plan of research. State Parks and UCB will conduct a discussion session at the Society of Conservation Biology's annual meeting, San Jose, June 2006, on the subject of evolutionary hot spots, presenting the research that has transpired by that point. Our work will both deliver tangible results for California conservation planners and stimulate ongoing participation by the academic evolutionary biology community. Our work also complements the ongoing research in the Grinnell Resurvey Project, aimed at understanding response of the vertebrate fauna to climate and habitat change over the past century.